Is The Auction At Monaco Proof That The Academy System Is Dead?

Monaco were this years surprise in the champions league. Putting on some unbelievable performances including one against Manchester City, the Monaco players were immediately thrown into the shop window for Europes giants. Espeically since the majority of the Monaco players were under 25 and on low salaries.

This summer there’s been somewhat of an auction at Monaco, with many of their stars already leaving the club, or very close to leaving.

With Bernardo Silva already at Manchester City, Bakayoko already at Chelsea, Lemar looking set for Arsenal, Benjamin Mendy on the verge of signing for Manchester City and Mbappe looking set to leave for Real Madrid, the squad has already fallen victim to the finacial power of Europes biggest clubs.

This is nothing new. Back when Benfica had a crop of young players including…Luiz, Ramires, Di Maria andCoentrao, they too were ripped apart in a single summer.

Napoli was another example. Back when Napoli began to take the scalps of European giants, big bids came in for their top stars such as Cavani and Lavezzi which forced them to rebuild once again.

The most recent example other than Monaco has to be Borussia Dortmund. After successful domestic and cup runs, the likes of Lewandowski, Gundogan, Hummels, Kagawa, Mkhitaryan, Sahin and Gotze were torn out of the side, forcing them to rebuild once again.

Smaller teams are becoming nothing more than feeder clubs for the teams with the most money. It’s not the worlds worst business model, Ukrainian team Shakhtar Donetsk have survived from developing South American talent for the last 10 years.

The likes of Douglas Costa, Willian and Fernandinho have funded the clubs activity impressively.

Monaco are facing a similar fate to the teams above, where they’re forced to settle for large amounts of money and rebuild the squad from scratch. Something they’re already doing with the acquisitions of Tielemans and Kongolo, two of the most promising youngsters in Europe.

The only problem is, if they do rebuild, what’s to stop the biggest clubs coming in and doing the exact same thing all over again?

One team that did successful defend itself against this method was At Madrid. Although they sold Diego Costa, Arda Turan and of course Courtois had to leave due to a loan spell, they retained the majority of the squad and spent the money well.

This has enabled them to go on and become a real European powerhouse in the world of football.

Whatever the future holds for Monaco, you can be sure a rebuild will have to happen and some global scouting of young talent will occur once again.

However this process of the big teams ignoring their own academies and simply plucking the best players who emerge in other teams, will inevitably continue.

It’s unfortunate for the likes of Benfica, Dortmund, Monaco and anyone else who manages to find a crop of 4-5 future superstars all at once, who knows where these teams would be today had they retained all of their players.

However, football is a business and a business needs to make money. Buying a young Brazilian boy at 18 for 1 or 2 million and selling him for 30 times that 4 years later is easy money, and these feeder teams are more than happy to continue this method in order to survive and turn over a profit.

Monaco were this years surprise in the champions league. Putting on some unbelievable performances including one against Manchester City, the Monaco players were immediately thrown into the shop window for Europes giants. Espeically since the majority of the Monaco players were under 25 and on low salaries.

This summer there's been somewhat of an auction at Monaco, with many of their stars already leaving the club, or very close to leaving.

With Bernardo Silva already at Manchester City, Bakayoko already at Chelsea, Lemar looking set for Arsenal, Benjamin Mendy on the verge of signing for Manchester City and Mbappe looking set to leave for Real Madrid, the squad has already fallen victim to the finacial power of Europes biggest clubs.

This is nothing new. Back when Benfica had a crop of young players including...Luiz, Ramires, Di Maria andCoentrao, they too were ripped apart in a single summer.

Napoli was another example. Back when Napoli began to take the scalps of European giants, big bids came in for their top stars such as Cavani and Lavezzi which forced them to rebuild once again.

The most recent example other than Monaco has to be Borussia Dortmund. After successful domestic and cup runs, the likes of Lewandowski, Gundogan, Hummels, Kagawa, Mkhitaryan, Sahin and Gotze were torn out of the side, forcing them to rebuild once again.

Smaller teams are becoming nothing more than feeder clubs for the teams with the most money. It's not the worlds worst business model, Ukrainian team Shakhtar Donetsk have survived from developing South American talent for the last 10 years.

The likes of Douglas Costa, Willian and Fernandinho have funded the clubs activity impressively.

Monaco are facing a similar fate to the teams above, where they're forced to settle for large amounts of money and rebuild the squad from scratch. Something they're already doing with the acquisitions of Tielemans and Kongolo, two of the most promising youngsters in Europe.

The only problem is, if they do rebuild, what's to stop the biggest clubs coming in and doing the exact same thing all over again?

One team that did successful defend itself against this method was At Madrid. Although they sold Diego Costa, Arda Turan and of course Courtois had to leave due to a loan spell, they retained the majority of the squad and spent the money well.

This has enabled them to go on and become a real European powerhouse in the world of football.

Whatever the future holds for Monaco, you can be sure a rebuild will have to happen and some global scouting of young talent will occur once again.

However this process of the big teams ignoring their own academies and simply plucking the best players who emerge in other teams, will inevitably continue.

It's unfortunate for the likes of Benfica, Dortmund, Monaco and anyone else who manages to find a crop of 4-5 future superstars all at once, who knows where these teams would be today had they retained all of their players.

However, football is a business and a business needs to make money. Buying a young Brazilian boy at 18 for 1 or 2 million and selling him for 30 times that 4 years later is easy money, and these feeder teams are more than happy to continue this method in order to survive and turn over a profit.